


'Twas The Night Before Christmas ...

by mad_martha



Series: Auror [10]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: AU, Angst, Christmas, Domestic, Gen, Humour, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-21
Updated: 2011-08-21
Packaged: 2017-10-22 21:59:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,878
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/243002
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mad_martha/pseuds/mad_martha
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Harry always suspected that Christmas was more stress than it was worth.</p>
            </blockquote>





	'Twas The Night Before Christmas ...

"So, what's everyone doing for Christmas this year?" Ron asked, as he helped Neville to dish up dinner. "Anyone up for having it here? We could fit a good-sized turkey in that oven, I reckon."

"There are easier ways of committing suicide, Ron," Hermione told him. When he looked blank, she sighed. "Your mum! She'll strangle you with a string of fairy lights if you don't go home for Christmas dinner!"

"Oh. Yeah, I suppose so. You're invited to The Burrow for Christmas, by the way."

She gave him an exasperated look. "If you knew that, why did you even ask about having Christmas dinner here?"

"It's just an idea! Seamus?"

Seamus sniggered, then made a wry face. "I'm out too, mate. Mam's threatened hellfire if I'm not home by Christmas Eve."

"I have to go home too," Neville said gloomily. "It's a tradition."

"Actually, Ron, I've already made my apologies to your mum anyway. My parents want me to go to Austria with them this year and ... well, it's a lovely opportunity." Hermione accepted her plate from him with an apologetic look.

"Quitter. Dean?"

"It's the first Christmas since my stepfather died," Dean replied. "I promised Mum I'd help her out."

"Cripes. Harry, mate, you're going to be on your own here at this rate." Ron heaped spaghetti and meatballs onto a plate and passed it to his partner. "You're invited to The Burrow too, by the way, but since we'll have the house to ourselves, I reckon we should just stay here and toss a couple dozen sausages in the frying pan."

"That's disgusting!" Seamus complained indistinctly around a mouthful of spaghetti.

Ron rolled his eyes. "Yeah - because the word "sausage" is _always_ an innuendo. Don't be a pillock!"

"Be fair," Harry told him, amused. "It usually _is_ an innuendo around here. Down, boy!" he added as an aside to Neville, who was making a performance of sucking up a strand of spaghetti in a particularly lascivious way. Neville sniggered and blew a sticky tomato kiss at a horrified Seamus.

"You're all disgusting," Hermione pronounced loftily, although her tolerant smile lent no weight to the accusation.

"Anyway," Ron persisted, "what do you reckon? Dinner at Mum and Dad's, with the twins putting Pustule Powder in the Eggflip, or dinner here, just the two of us - " he waggled his brows "and I'll help you move your stuff into my room while we're at it."

Harry sighed. Ron had been tossing around unsubtle hints about him moving into the attic room with him ever since Neville had accidentally outed them to the house a couple of months previously.

"I can't - sorry. I've sort of promised to spend Christmas Day with Sirius and Remus."

"Aren't they coming to The Burrow too?"

"No. Sirius likes to have a proper Christmas dinner at home," Harry explained, and he grinned wryly. "Which is great, but since he can't cook and he insists on trying, Remus spends the day being driven insane. I've said I'll go along to keep Sirius occupied while Remus cooks, but I'll probably help out in the kitchen too."

"But we'll all be here for Christmas Eve, right?" Ron said hopefully.

"I won't - I'm leaving on the twenty-first," Hermione replied. She tore a chunk off a crisp baguette with a brutal twist of her hands and offered the rest of the stick to Dean, who took it with exaggerated caution.

"I've got to be off on the twenty-third," Seamus added.

"I'll be here in the morning," Dean added, "but I'm meeting a couple of mates for a drink in the afternoon, then heading over to Mum's."

"I'm going to Gran's in the afternoon," Neville added.

"Well, that does it. It's you and me for a raunchy night in on Christmas Eve, Harry," Ron declared. He speared a meatball with his fork and regarded it affectionately before licking the sauce off. Seamus spluttered indignantly.

"You know what?" Dean said, making a face. "You two can sort out the details later, when I'm not around, okay?"

"What do you call raunchy, Ron?" Neville asked, amused by Dean and Seamus's squirming.

"See me later," Ron told him with a wink, "and bring the marmalade."

"How badly do you want to do the shopping for the next three weeks?" Hermione asked him pointedly.

"You're no fun."

"That's not what Viktor says," she retorted, and she weathered the sudden barrage of coos and catcalls with a smug little smile.

"Are you really planning to move in with Ron?" Neville asked Harry under the cover of the noise.

"No," Harry muttered back, exasperated. " _Ron's_ planning for me to move in with him, but _I'm_ planning to stay in my own room."

Neville grinned at him. "Can I open a book on who wins?"

"What? No! I - "

"Who's opening a book on what?" Seamus interrupted eagerly. He had amazing hearing - if the conversation involved sex, Quidditch or gambling.

"Nobody's opening a book on anything!" Harry protested. "Cripes! Eat your dinner."

"I can eat and calculate odds at the same time," Seamus retorted. "Come on! What are we betting on?"

"We are _not_ \- "

"Whether Ron gets Harry to move in with him over Christmas," Neville said before Harry could stop him.

"Oh." Seamus's enthusiasm was somewhat, but not entirely, dampened by this. "I'm not offering odds on _that_. What's the point in punting on a sure thing?"

"Exactly!" Ron approved, and he gave Harry what he probably thought was a look fraught with meaning.

Harry chose to misinterpret this and passed him the grated cheese instead.

"You'd have more time in the morning," Hermione pointed out, and she smiled sweetly in response to Harry's glower. "You wouldn't have to waste time running to your own room for your clothes and bathrobe."

"I don't waste time now!" Harry protested. "I'm always up in plenty of time!"

"Yes, but you wouldn't _have_ to be," Neville chimed in, his round face bright with mischief. "You could have a lie-in."

"That'd be a novelty," Ron said dryly.

"I can manage my own time-keeping, thanks!" Harry said, growing annoyed.

"Makes me feel a bit unwanted sometimes," Ron mused.

"Kill me now," Dean said to no one in particular, and Seamus made rather obvious gagging noises, horrified and amused in equal measure.

"If I didn't wake you up, you'd be late every morning anyway," Harry told Ron, wishing that this conversation hadn't evolved somehow at the dinner table.

"See? I need you there to make sure I'm not late for work."

"It's your own fault you killed the cuckoo clock," Harry added grumpily, winding spaghetti around his fork with a vengeance.

"Tell me that wasn't an innuendo," Seamus begged Dean.

"Depends what he did to the cuckoo clock," Neville noted, and Harry nearly choked on his mouthful.

~~~

Harry arrived home at lunchtime on Christmas Eve, having barely escaped the Auror Facility by the skin of his teeth. Christmas was one of those events where the Facility had to have a skeleton staff on duty and since only people like Mad-Eye Moody actually _wanted_ to work over Christmas, the apprentices who hadn't secured agreed leave of absence in advance had to draw lots to help provide cover. Harry had, with unusual good luck, managed to draw only the morning shifts of Christmas Eve, New Year's Eve and New Year's Day; Ron had been slightly less lucky, pulling the "mid-shifts" that ended at five o'clock in the evening of the same days. But at least neither of them had drawn Christmas Day or Boxing Day.

With Seamus and Hermione gone, however, the student house meal rota had been thrown completely out of sync. As the first home, Harry decided to do the others a favour and make some sort of lunch that could be reheated later when Ron came home. He pulled a large cauldron out of one of the cupboards (one of a series of rather pointed 'gifts' to the household from Mrs. Weasley) and began chopping up whatever vegetables he could find in the storage basket and throwing them into it. He found some peppery French sausage in the fridge (bought by Neville in an absent-minded moment, but not liked much by anyone) which he decided to chop and include, and Hermione had a vast collection of herbs, spices and stock cubes which he raided for additional flavours. A couple of pints or so of boiling water provided the necessary liquid and he hung the cauldron over the range on a low flame while he went to get cleaned up.

It was significantly later than five o'clock when Ron finally dropped out of the Floo and found Harry drinking tea in the kitchen. Two freshly washed soup bowls rested on the drainer at the side of the sink.

"Nev and Dean said to say Merry Christmas," Harry told him, pouring a mug of tea and holding it out. "Are you hungry? There's soup and bread, and I waited to eat with you."

"Let me grab a shower first," Ron said wearily. "Bloody hell, why are people such pillocks at Christmas? We got called out to _four_ domestics where things got out of hand and people were cursed with poisonous tentacles or whatever, and then there was the Christmas present."

"Christmas present?"

"I'll tell you in a minute. Dish us up some soup would you, mate? It smells fantastic."

By the time he returned Harry had reheated the soup and cut some bread and butter to go with it. Ron fell on the meal.

"The Christmas present," Harry reminded him.

"Oh yeah. A bloke turned up just after three," Ron said, between bites of bread. "He had this parcel - said he wanted us to take a look at it because his girlfriend's ex-husband dropped it off for their little girl. Swore he could hear something growling inside. Well, _I_ couldn't hear anything, but you know what Moody's like. If someone says it's growling, then there must be a bloody manticore's egg inside or something. He starts poking it around with his wand and, okay, the parcel's definitely growling. Then the girlfriend turns up with the little girl and starts a row with the bloke - wants to know what he thinks he's doing, bringing little Edith's Christmas present from her daddy to the Aurors. Next thing you know, it's a domestic in the reception area, the pair of them are screaming at each other and the little girl's grizzling in the corner. And all the while Moody's poking this parcel with his wand and his eye's going nuts - you know the drill."

"Couldn't he see what was inside it?" Harry asked curiously.

"Buggered if I know, mate. Maybe even if he could he didn't trust what he saw, you know?" Ron grimaced. "Anyway, we're trying to keep the couple from hexing each other and calm down the little girl - cute kid, pity she had such a barking mad family - when Moody does something and boom! the parcel explodes all over Reception."

"What the hell was it?"

Ron paused to wipe his bowl with a crust and eat it. He sighed deeply with satisfaction. "That was great. You make it?"

"Nah, I came home and found Hedwig slaving over a hot cauldron," Harry said. "What was in the parcel?"

"A teddy bear."

"A … what?!"

Ron snorted, beginning to grin. "It was a teddy bear! And bloody hell, what a fiasco. There's bits of fur and limbs and fake eyes and stuffing all over the place, and most of the head with the growl-box lands right in front of little Edith. She starts howling - well, she's only four - and the head's growling and Moody's leaping around and firing off hexes all over the place like he's expecting the bits of it to attack him, and - "

He broke off, for Harry was howling himself - with laughter.

"So, everyone's gone have they?" Ron asked a short while later, while they were cleaning up after the meal.

"Yeah. Nev hung on for as long as he dared, but I ended up practically throwing him into the Floo - I didn't want his Gran sending a howler. Dean left right after lunch, though."

"So we've got the house to ourselves?"

Harry grinned. "What have you got in mind?"

"Are you kidding me?" Ron pinned him up against the sink, a lascivious light in his eyes. "This may be our only chance to shag on the sofa for once."

"That sofa has a broken spring," Harry objected, and Ron rolled his eyes.

"I'll fix the bloody spring! Are you going to let me have your arse for Christmas?"

"Such a romantic, Weasley," Harry tutted. He ducked under Ron's arm and took a couple of steps back. " _You_ can mess about with the sofa if you like, but _I'm_ having a bath." He screwed up his damp tea towel and threw it at Ron, and ran for the stairs before his partner could retaliate.

~~~

The last time they'd tried this Harry hadn't been able to relax to save his life, and what should have been an erotic interlude had ended in the kitchen with tea, biscuits and an intense conversation about Harry's hang-ups and the bearing they had on the relationship Ron wanted them to have. This time, however, he thought they might have the opposite problem.

"I'm going to have to get out of the tub in a minute," he mumbled languidly, making no attempt to get out of the tub. "Got to go to Godric's Hollow tonight."

"Just go in the morning," Ron said, nibbling his earlobe. "Stay here tonight, with me."

"They're expecting me tonight. Your Mum's expecting you too."

Ron muttered something that Harry thought it was better to pretend he hadn't heard.

"Honestly, you've no idea what Sirius is like at Christmas. He'll be driving Remus up the wall, 'specially if he's had a drink."

"Sirius really needs to get laid," Ron said grumpily.

Harry snorted. "He'd probably agree with you!" He held a foot up and considered his toes. "We're going to look like raisins at this rate. _Old_ raisins."

"Are you calling us a pair of dried-up old fruits?"

Harry grinned and pinched Ron's knee. Then he sat up reluctantly. "Come on, we'd better get out ..."

If anyone could make getting dried and dressed an hour-long job, Ron could. The hour was considerably advanced by the time Harry pulled on his robe and scarf in the sitting room. He wasn't at all surprised to see that Ron was making no effort to do likewise.

"Get your gear on and go to The Burrow!" Harry told him sternly, giving him a gentle poke in the ribs.

Ron rolled his eyes. "I will, I will! When I've had a cup of tea."

"Now, Ron!"

"Bloody hell! I wish I'd known I was going to get henpecked when I shacked up with you!"

" _Cock_ pecked," Harry corrected him, amused.

"My cock wouldn't mind spending more time with your pecker tonight."

"Merlin! I'm going, before the Bad Pun Squad turns up." Harry reached up to give Ron a quick kiss on the mouth. "I'll see you sometime tomorrow, okay? I'm pretty sure your mum's invited us round for tea."

"I'll be counting the hours," Ron said wryly. He caught Harry's arm and pulled him back for another, longer kiss. "Mind the Floo," he warned, as he released him. "It's going to be busy tonight. I'll give you your present tomorrow, all right?"

Harry widened his eyes a little as he grabbed a handful of Floo powder and stepped into the hearth. "But I thought you just did? _Godric's Hollow!_ "

~~~

He heard Sirius singing long before he tumbled into the hearth of the house at Godric's Hollow; slightly tipsy carols, scandalously reworded and weirdly distorted through hearth after chimney after fireplace ...

The landing, as always, was abrupt and nearly pitched Harry onto the phoenix-patterned hearthrug, but fortunately Remus Lupin was waiting there to catch him. He did so one-handed, as the other hand held a tumbler of amber liquid. This, Harry thought, was an ominous sign. Remus didn't drink much, as his werewolf metabolism sometimes did weird things with alcohol. More ominous still was that Sirius wasn't actually in the sitting room, which meant his singing had to be quite obnoxiously loud to be heard through the Floo system.

"Hello Harry," Remus said wearily, and he steered him firmly out of the fireplace. "Excuse me a moment - " He reached around him and firmly closed and locked the Floo. "I try to have _some_ consideration for our fellow wizards and witches and they really don't need to listen to Sirius at this time of night on Christmas Eve."

"I reckon they've got their own problems," Harry said, although not without sympathy. "The Floo's screwed - I landed in six other hearths before I got here." He made a face. "And don't ask what that couple were up to with the baubles at hearth number four. I'm mentally scarred by it."

"Ah well, that's Christmas for you. Drink?"

Harry gave him a wary look. "Do I need one?"

"You might be glad of it before the evening's out," Remus said, and there was a decidedly grim note in his voice.

Harry glanced up at the clock on the mantelpiece: 10.45 pm. "I don't think there's much of the evening left."

"We can only hope!"

Sirius broke into another remarkably loud carol, and they both winced. It occurred to Harry that if it wasn't already illegal to do that to "The Holly and The Ivy", then it really ought to be.

"Where is he and what's he doing?"

"He's peeling sprouts in the kitchen," Remus said, dropping into the embrace of his favourite armchair with a groan. "You'd better say hello – he'll be terribly peeved if he thinks he missed your arrival."

Harry pulled his cloak off, but hesitated. "Is he - ?" He mimed tipping up a glass.

Remus nodded. "Sorry, I should have mentioned that his old friend Jack Daniels is helping him with the veg."

"Ah." Harry considered this. "Remus – why does he get like this at Christmas?"

"I think it's something to do with it being a family occasion," Remus said, and he grimaced. "He hasn't spoken to his family in years, of course. I'm not sure why it's worse on Christmas Eve though – might be something to do with an old tradition, but that's just a wild guess. Anyway …" He made shooing motions. "Go and say hello. He'll calm down a bit when he sees you, you always cheer him up."

Harry hoped this was true. It wasn't often that Sirius got drunk, but it was always a mess when he did; Azkaban had left him with a lower tolerance for alcohol, so it didn't take much to get him going. Harry peeked cautiously around the kitchen door, but to his relief he could see that his godfather was at least drinking his whisky out of a glass rather than directly from the bottle, and despite the alarming kitchen knife in his hand he still seemed to have all his fingers. He was cheerily segueing into Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer (Rudolph acquiring a red something else in the process) when he caught sight of Harry and put the knife down, a huge grin breaking across his face.

"Harry! Merry Christmas!"

"Hey Sirius, happy – _oof!_ "

There was never any option but to submit to Sirius's bone-crushing, breath-squeezing hugs; Harry thought he might even be getting used to them. Sort of.

"Give me a hand with the veg and sing some carols with me!" Sirius commanded, releasing him.

"You've done mountains already," Harry observed, viewing the tottering pile of Brussels sprouts with a fascinated eye.

"Yep!" Sirius regarded them fondly. "And you know what? Every one of them has a _perfect_ little cross on the bottom. What more could you ask for?"

 _Antacids_ , was Harry's first thought, but he gamely suppressed it. "What other veg are you doing?"

"Not spuds."

"Oh!"

"Moony says he'll do them tomorrow."

"Good thinking," Harry agreed. "They'll go brown otherwise."

"You know, that's what he said, and he knows this stuff so I'll just let him do that. And he won't let me touch the parsnips or carrots either. So I'm going to pod the peas, and you can help me do that." Sirius made an expansive gesture. "I'll show you how."

"That's okay," Harry said, thinking of all the places stray peas could get into in this little kitchen when his godfather inevitably lost control of them. "I've podded peas before."

Sirius paused and gave him a dark look. "That woman!" he stated, with an alarming switch of mood. "That – she had no business making you pod peas!"

 _Oh cripes._ "I liked podding peas," Harry said, keeping his tone calm and amiable. "I could eat half of them raw and she never knew."

It was the right thing to say. Sirius beamed at him, and clapped him on the shoulder.

"Atta boy! Sneaky - you're your dad's son!"

"That's always good to know."

"Now, I'll just – wait, you don't have a drink!"

"I could murder a cup of tea – "

"Tea? _Tea?_ Bugger that, it's Christmas! Have a real drink – here, there's another glass here somewhere …"

"Honestly, tea would be great," Harry said weakly, but Sirius had already located another tumbler and was pouring an eye-watering measure of whisky into it.

"Get that down you! Now - I was going to stuff the goose - "

" _Touch that goose and you'll spend the rest of the evening in a full body-bind!_ " Remus roared from the other room.

Sirius blew a loud raspberry through the doorway. "Honestly, it's like living with someone's mother! Not mine." He raised his voice. "All right, Lord Finicketty-Pants! What _can_ I do to please your majesty?"

Remus appeared and Harry scooted to one side to let him into the kitchen. "You can come and help me and Harry finish off that box of chocolates and - "

He was interrupted by a soft chiming sound from the sitting room Floo.

"Buggery, who's that at this time of night?" Sirius demanded rudely. "If it's another set of bloody carol singers they'll spend the night in the coal-scuttle with crackers up their arses!"

"I'll get rid of them," Remus said dryly. "Harry, would you mind …?" He made a vague gesture and disappeared.

"What's – " Sirius mimicked the gesture.

"Your guess is as good as mine," Harry admitted. He suspected Remus wanted him to manage the Sirius situation somehow and the wishy-washy hand-wave probably meant that he had no better notion of how to accomplish this than Harry himself did. "So where are these peas, then?"

"They're in the veg basket … somewhere." Sirius peered around, but the veg basket failed to materialise. "He keeps hiding it, you know. Thinks he's being funny. Drink up, Harry – the whiskey won't run out, you know!"

"If we can't find the veg, we'll just have to go and eat the chocolates," Harry said brightly.

"Damn. I was looking forward to podding the peas."

Sirius was ludicrously disappointed, but while it was tempting to be amused by his mournful expression Harry was more concerned with the possibility of him crashing down from his good mood into alcoholic depression instead, which was infinitely more upsetting than a few blasphemous carols and copious profanities.

"Chocolates?" he wheedled hopefully.

"Oh, all right! The sugar'll keep you up all night, but that's your mum's problem."

 _No no no!_ Harry was appalled. _Don't start thinking about Mum and Dad …_ "It's Christmas, chocolate's only the half of it." He grabbed Sirius's elbow and steered him out of the kitchen.

"Didn't Ron come with you?" Sirius asked, allowing himself to be towed down the passage.

"Er, no … he's gone to the Burrow."

"Oh. Thought you might bring him with you. We've plenty of room."

It was tempting to ask where, for the house only had three bedrooms and Sirius and Remus didn't know about Harry and Ron being together, a state of affairs Harry was perfectly happy with. He gave Sirius a furtive look but his attention seemed to be caught mostly by the strings of tinsel decorating the hallway.

"He'll get plenty of sweet stuff at home, without eating ours as well."

"We've got plenty of sweets too."

"Good. Let's eat some of them."

Sirius snorted, his mood visibly improving. Then Remus stepped out of the sitting room with a grim face and a glass of something smoking in one hand which he thrust at Sirius.

"Drink up. We've got an emergency call out."

"What!" Harry and Sirius chorused.

"But it's Christmas Eve!" Harry added indignantly. "Isn't someone else on duty?"

"Apparently not. Drink up, Sirius! You're not going anywhere until you're passably sober."

Sirius said a few choice things, but he reluctantly choked down the Pepper-Up Potion while Harry searched for their robes. His own Auror robe was back at the student house; he had to borrow one of Sirius's.

"Where are we going?" he asked when he returned with them.

Remus didn't answer at once; he was watching Sirius's face as his friend coughed and gagged over the glass. When he was satisfied that the sobriety was returning to his face, he said with notable reluctance: "You won't know it; one of us will have to Apparate you."

"Where?" Sirius said, handing the glass back.

Remus's lips twisted unhappily. "Grimmauld Place.

~~~

"Hopefully it's just a false alarm," Remus said, hanging on to Harry's arm until he recovered from the Apparition. Sirius made no comment, but looked horribly tense.

"I don't understand," Harry said, looking from the rather scruffy and run-down row of houses back to his two mentors. "Who lives here?"

"An old pureblood family."

They set off across a broad square of ratty grass that lay between them and the houses. It was bitterly cold and surprisingly quiet for Christmas Eve; most of the houses seemed to be in darkness and it was impossible for Harry to tell which one they were heading for.

"Why have they called us?"

"Apparently they found a body in their back garden a short while ago."

"Was it Death Eaters?"

"I doubt it. No Dark Mark – not that that means much these days. But we have to make sure before the MLEs take the deceased away."

"I still don't get it," Harry protested. "If the MLEs are here, why do they need us?"

"Because the family in question has a dodgy reputation," Sirius said in an odd tone, before Remus could reply.

"Oh. Are _they_ Death Eaters, then?"

"They weren't before, but that doesn't mean anything."

Perplexed, Harry followed the two of them towards the one house that had any visible lights; a dull glow behind thick curtains on the ground floor and single, greenish gaslight above the front door that illuminated a tarnished silver number plate – number 12 – and a coiled snake-shaped doorknocker.

Sirius hesitated over the knocker, then rapped on the door with his knuckles instead. Whoever lived there was in no hurry to answer; they all got considerably colder in the time it took for the little light above the door to brighten and the door itself to creak open.

When it did so, Harry blinked; for a moment it looked as though the door was opening by itself. Then he realised that there was, in fact, a very elderly, stooped and wizened house-elf half-concealed behind it, one with familiar bat-ears that were liberally sprouting grey hair and a pair of rheumy old eyes that peered at them. His expression could only be described as hostile and most of that hostility was aimed directly at Sirius, who he regarded with the utmost loathing. From the look on Sirius's face, the feeling was mutual.

Then he spoke, and his voice was so deep and croaking that Harry almost jumped.

"You is not welcome in my master and mistress's house!" he said to Sirius.

"Your master summoned the Aurors," Sirius told him curtly. "Here we are. It's not your place to question the matter, Kreacher!"

Having had some experience with house-elves, Harry suspected that Kreacher could and would have disputed this, as Sirius was not his master and he wasn't bound to take any notice of anything he said. Then he was distracted by two strange thoughts: what kind of family called their servant _Kreacher_ – a denigration that made Harry stiffen with offence – and how did Sirius know the elf's name in the first place?

Before Kreacher could reply to Sirius, a door opened some way down the dimly-lit passage that was half-visible behind the door, and a man who seemed much of an age with Sirius and Remus appeared.

"Kreacher, who is there?" he demanded, approaching. His voice was cool, aristocratic and somewhat indifferent, but Kreacher reacted by at once grovelling to him, bowing until his snout-like nose was almost touching the floor.

"There is Aurors coming here, Master Regulus, Kreacher is telling them they is not welcome …"

The man stopped directly below a lamp a foot or so inside the house, and Harry nearly did a double-take. He looked quite extraordinarily like –

A vicious pinch to his elbow cut the thought dead before his mouth could open and blurt it out. Remus somehow managed to push himself into the gap between Harry and Sirius and he took charge of the situation.

"Mr. Regulus Black?" He held up his Auror badge. "Remus Lupin, Auror. We received a message from the MLEs that a body had been found on your premises. Is that the case?"

Aloof, arrogant grey eyes flicked over Harry and Remus, skipping over Sirius as though he wasn't there. "I wasn't aware that the MLEs felt an Auror presence to be necessary."

"Nevertheless, we've been summoned," Remus said, matching his tone with an impersonal one of his own. "If we could be shown where they are, we can establish what the situation is and hopefully leave you in peace as soon as possible."

"Really, all this fuss for what will probably be found to be some filthy old Muggle drunk!"

"As if that's even possible in _this_ house," Sirius said, and his tone was so uncharacteristically surly that Harry blinked.

The house-elf grimaced angrily. "You is not speaking to my Master in that tone of voice, you – "

"That will do, Kreacher." Not by a flicker of an eyelid did this Regulus Black even hint that he had heard Sirius's words. His face might have been finely sculpted marble for all the emotion he displayed, and the only reaction he showed to any of them was a tiny twitch of his brows when his eyes flicked over the scar on Harry's forehead. "You'll find the MLEs in the back garden, Lupin; Kreacher will escort you and your associates. I'd be obliged if you – and they – would hurry up and remove the body. This has been a most unseemly interruption into my family's Christmas celebrations."

"And we wouldn't want that, would we?" Sirius said sarcastically.

Regulus Black remained utterly unmoved, however; he gave Remus a curt nod, indicated to the house-elf that he should take charge of them, then turned away and strolled back to the room he'd come from. The door shut behind him with a tiny and very final _click_.

"You is following Kreacher and not touching anything," the house-elf told them, in a tone of the deepest hostility.

Only then, as he turned away, did Remus react to Sirius's behaviour. "Button it," he said, so softly that Harry strained to hear him. "If it were anyone but Harry with us I'd tell you to go home, but he's only an apprentice and my testimony won't be valid unless you sign it off. So get a grip on yourself and act like the professional I know you are."

Sirius shrugged like an angry teenager, but he shut up and followed the two of them in Kreacher's wake as they were led through the house, down through the kitchen and scullery, and out into the back garden. There, a team of two MLEs were standing by wandlight over a bundle of old robes that resolved into the form of a very decrepit old man.

"What have you got?" Remus asked the MLEs briskly. He looked down at the old man and sighed. "Or should I ask who?"

The MLEs, Sirius had told Harry more than once, were people who loved the idea of being Aurors but failed the entrance exams for one reason or another. Some of them, it was true, were decent, hard-working witches and wizards determined to administer magical law and justice fairly and promptly. Others were not. Unfortunately, it was very much like the flip of a coin for which sort you got.

These two were both witches; one was not much older than Harry and had an apprentice slash across her badge, and the other, a senior who looked to be in early middle age, seemed competent enough but was clearly keen to foist the job onto someone else and be off, most likely because she too had been dragged out on call that night.

"It's old Walter Harris the elder," she reported, matching Remus's businesslike tone. "Looks like he might have fallen foul of someone's anti-burglar wards – at his age, it wouldn't take much to give him a heart-attack, the old fool, but we called you in because of where he was found. You can't be too sure with _this_ lot."

She nodded towards the house, and Harry glanced reflexively in that direction. He was shocked to see a wide window, well-lit and full of well-dressed rubberneckers who were drinking, chatting and laughing as they watched the scene in the garden below them, as though it was a comic play being enacted for their amusement. The man who had admitted them to the house was there, along with another man, much older but resembling him too closely to be anything other than a close family member.

When Harry turned back, Sirius had crouched down beside the body, his back to the window, but his shoulders were painfully rigid. He was examining the corpse with gentle hands.

"Yeah, it's Warty's old man," he confirmed. His voice held nothing but the usual calm compassion Harry had seen him display in other such scenes, and certainly nothing to hint at whatever turmoil was going on under the surface. "He's done his last robbery. Burglary runs in the family, but he's not nearly as fast or smart as he used to be. Look at his hands, Harry – the wards gave him a stiff shock, his fingertips were burned clean off." He stood up and looked at the two MLEs. "I'm afraid this one's your problem. You can check the residue from the wards and get a wand signature, but I'm willing to bet that they're within legal limits. There's no dark magic residue, and he didn't try to burgle this place – someone like old Harris would never get past the household wards here."

"He probably had his run-in somewhere else, possibly even nearby," Remus added, before the senior witch could question Sirius's knowledge of the wards on this unpleasant house. "I'd say he felt ill on his way home and decided to take a shortcut through the garden here – the outer wards seem fairly light to me. Then he had a heart-attack before he got any further. Get your staff Healer to contact us if he finds anything different, of course, but it's unlikely to be the Black family's fault. "

"We should be grateful they bothered to call it in, instead of having the house-elf dump the body on the street outside," Sirius remarked, dry as dust.

"Yes, well …" The senior MLE didn't seem too happy about this conclusion, but she reluctantly agreed to deal with the matter and the three men prepared to leave.

"I really hope you don't feel a need to bid our charming hosts a fond farewell," Sirius said to Remus in a very controlled voice, "because there's a gate out of this garden and I'm planning to make use of it."

"No, I think that's probably for the best," Remus agreed. His tone was level enough, but Harry could see him watching Sirius warily in the dim light from their wands as they made their way down the path.

~~~

From seemingly being quite sober and in control, it was shocking to Harry to see how fast Sirius could collapse onto the sofa with the shakes when they got home.

Remus seemed to have anticipated this. He gave the fire a quick poke, then found a glass and a bottle of something from the cabinet Sirius kept, and poured him a stiff measure.

"Here, get this down you," he said firmly, his eyes watching Sirius warily for a moment or two until he managed to get the glass to his mouth and choke the pale green liquid down. "That's better. Now, just sit there for a few minutes and take it easy. Harry, keep an eye on him for me, would you? I need to send an owl to the Facility about that incident."

"All right."

Harry took his own cloak off and sat down on the other end of the sofa. He wasn't quite sure what to say to his godfather, but felt that to say nothing would probably be worse.

"They were your family, weren't they," he said finally, tentative. "Your … brother? And was that your father with him, in the window?"

Sirius dragged in a shaky breath and kept his eyes fixed on a spot on the rug before his feet. "Yeah … and my aunt and uncle, and probably a couple of my cousins."

"And your mother?"

Sirius breathed a tiny, humourless chuckle. "Noooo … she died while I was in Azkaban. Thank god."

"Oh." Harry wondered what to say next. The whole feel of this situation, the atmosphere that had hung over them while they were at that house – he couldn't have described it to save his life, but it gave him a faintly sick feeling in his stomach, especially when he saw how grey and traumatised Sirius looked. He already knew Sirius's father had disowned him, but he hadn't realised what that meant in practical terms. He hadn't realised that Sirius had been hiding _this_ all along, under his deceptively light comments about his family. "How long has it been since you spoke to them?"

Sirius seemed to pull himself together as best he could, and even managed to answer in a semblance of a normal voice. "Since a fair bit before Azkaban, actually. That wasn't the only thing to go wrong – I was at odds with them even before I left school, but Azkaban was the final straw, if you like. You could say they cut their losses after that."

" _All_ of them?"

"Oh yes. Nobody defied my mother about things like that. Not that I think any of them wanted to."

Harry couldn't quite comprehend this. "But … what could be so bad that they'd treat you like that?"

Sirius's eyes rose to meet his for a brief moment, and the melange of emotion there made Harry wish he hadn't asked. But all he said was: "I was different to them."

When Remus returned a few minutes later, he was carrying a small tray with three mugs of hot chocolate on it. "I thought we could all do with this," he commented as he passed them around.

Harry had to admit that it was very welcome, although he didn't want to think too closely about whether it was the cold or the emotional upside-downs that it was soothing.

And within moments of drinking his, Sirius suddenly fell asleep. Remus removed his empty mug from his hand matter-of-factly.

"Give me a hand with him, will you, Harry? Let's put him to bed."

"Did you put something in his chocolate?" Harry asked suspiciously, as they removed Sirius's outer clothes and rolled him beneath his blankets. Sirius was already snoring robustly, unheeding of the manhandling.

"Of course. Between the whiskey earlier, the Pepper-Up, and the rotgut I gave him when we got back, he's going to feel bad enough, without sleep deprivation on top of everything else." Remus sighed. "Hopefully he'll sleep it all off and feel a lot better in the morning. Well … as better as he can feel with a hangover, but there's a potion for that in the bathroom cupboard."

He straightened up and regarded Harry wryly across his friend's slumbering form. "How are you?"

"Okay, I suppose." Actually, Harry had no idea how he felt.

"It's not much of a Christmas for you, Harry. I'm sorry."

Harry snorted gently. "Yeah, right! You realise this is still the best party ever, compared to what my aunt and uncle used to do? And there's still dinner and presents tomorrow!"

"Plenty of room left for disaster yet," Remus agreed, straight-faced, as he ushered Harry out of Sirius's room and shut the door behind them. "Well, for what it's worth – happy Christmas! Good grief, it's nearly half past two – let's get to bed, or I'll never be up in time to put the goose in the oven."

xXx

Christmas Day had a more subdued start than Harry had expected when he set out for his godfather's house the previous evening. Unsurprisingly, after the evening he'd had, Sirius didn't rise until very late, leaving Remus and Harry to eat a quiet, leisurely breakfast together and work on preparing the dinner unhindered - probably for the first time since the two older men had moved into the cottage.

Harry was grateful for it. He hadn't slept as well as he'd expected to, in part because of his relatively unaccustomed surroundings, but also because he kept expecting to find Ron at his side and not feeling him there would half-wake him with a start. Clearly he had got used to sleeping with someone else, and this was a revelation he wasn't entirely sure he liked. For one thing, it suggested a level of commitment which he knew Ron would be happy about, but which – somewhere at the back of his mind - he still wasn't sure he was ready for himself. It was one of the reasons why he insisted on keeping his own room at the student house. His life was too uncertain; emotional entanglements were one thing, but the kind of commitment that involved shared personal space was a whole different game of Quidditch. Harry had a nebulous idea that people who had homicidal Dark Lords chasing them had no business cohabiting. It wasn't fair to the other person.

Even leaving Voldemort out of the equation, though, it still bothered him. Harry's ideas of relationships were misty and undefined, even to himself, and the subject made him nervous. His experience of marriages and families was a mixed bag; on the one hand, there was his aunt and uncle, which was a family set-up he was determined not to recreate even in the smallest detail, while on the other there was the Weasleys. And while Harry loved the Weasleys, he wasn't sure that was what he wanted either, although undoubtedly Ron based his own family model on that. Somewhere in the middle fell his parents - supposedly a happy couple, although possibly not as conventional as people liked to portray them - and Sirius and Remus, both of whom seemed to be confirmed bachelors with family issues.

Having been confronted with Sirius's family issues only hours previously, albeit briefly, Harry found himself wondering why anyone bothered with the institution. It seemed unreliable to him and productive of an awful lot of grief.

"I need those chestnuts chopped, not puréed," Remus said, breaking into his reverie gently. He smiled when Harry started and looked up at him guiltily. He took the bowl of chopped nuts away from him. "Here, let me have them. Are you all right? You're very quiet."

"Just thinking about Sirius's family," Harry admitted.

"Then don't," Remus advised. "Even he doesn't, for three hundred and sixty-four days of the year. I've never found out why Christmas is such a trigger, and based on what we saw last night I'd rather not know. And he wouldn't have got more than tipsy if it hadn't been for that call-out. I'll have something to say to the dispatcher when I go back to work after the holiday - they should have known better than to send Sirius of all people to Grimmauld Place."

"He said that was his brother," Harry said, going to wash his hands. "Did you know him?"

"I met him at school, but I wouldn't say I knew him," Remus replied. "Regulus is a couple of years younger than Sirius and he was in Slytherin. He played Seeker on their Quidditch team ... and that's about all I can tell you. They didn't bother much with each other, as far as I know."

"What about the rest of the family?"

"I don't know a lot about them either. Old Man Black's something to do with the Board of Directors at Gringotts." Remus hesitated over his bowl of stuffing ingredients. "Look, there are people who'll tell you that the Blacks have a collective reputation for dealing in Dark magic - that was one of the things that may even have counted against Sirius at his trial. All I can tell you is that to the best of my knowledge, there have never been any convictions in the family for anything like that - yes, I know," he said, seeing Harry's expression, "but hearsay isn't hard evidence, Harry! And in all the cases we've dealt with as Aurors, there's never once been even a whisper of involvement by Sirius's family, and never rumour of it on the back streets or among the informants. They weren't involved with Voldemort either - in fact, they seemed to make a point of distancing themselves from the Death Eaters during the last war. They like to keep themselves to themselves, and they don't like scandal attaching itself to the family name. That's probably the real reason his father disowned Sirius after the trial, although they were estranged long before that."

Harry digested this for a while, then finally admitted, "I don't understand families."

Remus's lips twitched. "I'd be astonished if anyone did, personally, let alone you or me! Now - let's drop the unseemly profound thoughts and concentrate on the dinner. We'll treat ourselves to a cup of tea, then I'll show you the proper way to stuff a goose."

~~~

Sirius was rather subdued when he finally made an appearance, but the hangover potion had done its work and he was able to approach the lavish dinner Harry and Remus had prepared with a suitably appreciative appetite.

"I meant to do all this for you," he said, looking guilty as he helped by sharpening the carving knife.

"Truly, it was quite a pleasure that you didn't," Remus told him genially, and Harry grinned at his godfather's expression.

Afterwards they exchanged presents, which were largely of the clothing variety (Sirius remaining convinced that neither his friend nor his godson would dress in anything but charity shop rags without his lavish intervention), although Remus had bought Harry a book on an esoteric branch of battle magics, and Harry had daringly procured a book of erotic novellas in the original French for Sirius. Judging by his appreciative snuffles of laughter as he flicked through it, this was a hit.

Finally, as the afternoon light began to fade a little, they all pulled on warm cloaks, scarves, hats and gloves and set out for The Burrow, to have tea with the Weasleys.

~~~

Harry had once seen - purely by accident, when his cousin was watching it - Disney's _The Sorcerer's Apprentice_ , when Mickey Mouse attempted to enchant a broomstick and ended up with a rapidly multiplying problem. Christmas tea in Mrs. Weasley's house brought this scene strongly to mind, although in her case the spell seemed to have misfired on the mince pies instead. There were scores of them, and Harry had no doubts at all that a few hundredweights would be going home with him, Sirius and Remus, and turning up in the pantry at the student house in due course.

Mrs. Weasley, of course, didn't see a problem with this. The only problem she saw was that people weren't eating enough, and to support the mince pies she'd put together a few vast, wobbly jellies with cream, fragrant figgy puddings and custard, and plates of turkey and ham sandwiches to tempt those fugitive appetites. Harry tried not to wilt at the sight of it all.

What bothered him more was that the one member of the family who could always be relied upon to have a hollow leg to stow extra food in, was missing from the living room when they arrived.

"Where's Ron?" Harry asked Ginny, as Mrs. Weasley's enormous serving plates wafted around the room nonchalantly, floating under her guests' noses in an attempt to tantalise them into eating more.

"Mum thinks he's upstairs, finding some old Martin Miggs comics for our cousin Roland," she replied.

There was a pause in the conversation as they braced themselves and accepted heaping portions of raspberry jelly with whipped cream and a dollop of brandied fruits on the side. Perhaps sensing a moment of weakness, a basin of trifle big enough to give even Hagrid a pause swooped down on Harry but he was resolute in his refusal. Disappointed, it floated away to pester Charlie and his wife instead.

"And where is he, in reality?" Harry asked, as he sampled the admittedly excellent jelly.

"I don't know for sure, but I think he went home. He said he had a lot of sorting out to do."

"Sorting out of what?"

Ginny shrugged. "Furniture? Clothes?"

Harry blinked. He couldn't imagine what furniture Ron felt a need to sort out, unless he planned to mend the sofa after all, and that seemed a rather odd thing to do on Christmas Day. Not that he would put this past his partner at all; Ron definitely liked having his own space away from The Burrow, and this was the first major family get-together since he'd left home. Apparently it had been too much for him, which Harry thought strange, but even after the better part of eight years he didn't claim to know his friend inside out. At some point, around the same time he'd developed the Sight, Ron had suddenly started to walk his own unique path and sometimes he did behave oddly.

This was another thing about his relationship with Ron that Harry wasn't entirely sure he liked, and the realisation that his partner had suddenly taken off and was doing god only knew what made him twitchy with the need to go and find him and work out what was happening with him _this_ time.

Ginny gave him a knowing look and rolled her eyes. "Eat your jelly before you take off after him," she advised. "Mum'll throw a fit and come looking for you both if you just disappear. Besides, you don't want people to start wondering about the two of you, do you?"

Unlikely as this seemed – the rest of the family were far too preoccupied with arguing over the giant Christmas crossword in the _Daily Prophet_ \- Harry took the hint and made himself stay put, at least for a while. Crosswords not being his thing, he found himself sitting next to Sirius and watching bemusedly as everyone else, Remus included, fought over dictionaries and tossed the clues about between them. Curiously, Sirius seemed rather detached from the action too.

"Do you reckon this is a family thing or a Christmas thing?" Harry asked him at length.

"You're asking me of all people?"

"I s'pose your family didn't go in for crosswords much," Harry ventured.

"You s'pose correctly." Sirius considered the mêlée in front of them critically for a moment or two. "Not that I don't like a crossword myself, but it's a private pleasure, not a barn-raising."

"Do you reckon this is the best method they could find of not killing each other from boredom?"

Sirius grinned, but replied, "Is it me or do I detect a hint of cynicism about Christmas in your tone?"

"Maybe. Christmas is a family thing, and I realised today that I don't really understand families."

A shadow passed over Sirius's expression for a moment, but it was chased away almost at once by a deliberately quirky little grin. "Nobody does, Harry. You're supposed to spend most of your life working it out."

Harry gave him an odd look. "Ri-i-ight. And how much of that sherry trifle did you eat?"

"You don't really think I had room for it after the mince pies?" Sirius smiled wryly. "Family is what you make of it, you know, it's not just a group of people who happen to be related to each other. Or at least, it isn't for you and me. We're family, aren't we?"

Harry told himself that it was ridiculous to feel a little glow of warmth at hearing his godfather say this, but it was nice to have the unofficial relationship between them acknowledged and affirmed occasionally. "I think so."

"Good. That said, it has nothing to do with celebrating Christmas through community crossword-solving, which is just as well because we'd fail badly on that score." Sirius looked around, before adding, "Come to that, so do the Weasleys. Arthur slipped off somewhere very quietly, didn't he?"

"Yeah, and so did Ron," Harry noted. He began to drag himself out of the firm grip of the sofa. "Speaking of which, I'd better go and find him. There's a rumour going around that he took off home, instead of going up in the attic like he said he was, and if Mrs. Weasley finds out she won't be too happy with him."

"And we wouldn't want that," Sirius agreed gravely, but he gave Harry a wink and got up himself. "Go on – I'll cover for you both." He sauntered over to the table. "I heard that! Five down, _A Roman in need of a good scale and polish_ – you should be thinking about Catullus, he had a dirty mouth …"

~~~

Harry knew as soon as he Apparated into the living room of the student house that Ron was there; there was a feel to the house that said he wasn't alone. He hesitated for a moment, for it was tempting to sneak up on him and see what he was up to. There wasn't much point, though, for it was difficult to sneak up on someone who could predict what you were planning anything up to a day ahead.

Ron wasn't constantly 'Seeing' of course; the more experienced and better trained he became, the less random the Sight was and the more he had to actively 'look', but he still Saw a great deal about the people he was closest to - which meant that Harry found it harder than most to trick him.

And yet sometimes he still got lucky.

He could hear Ron moving around when he climbed the stairs - not in his own room in the attic, but in Harry's room at the end of the passage on the floor below. What the devil was he doing in there? It explained one thing though; Harry knew enough about the Sight now to know that his appearance in the house had been masked to Ron by the sheer quantity of Harry's own vibrations in his bedroom.

Ron was so busy about his business that he never even heard Harry behind him. He stiffened at the feel of a wand-tip under his ear, though.

"Call yourself a seer?" Harry teased. "Aren't you glad I'm not a Death Eater?" Then he got a good look at the state of his bedroom and was taken aback. "What the hell are you doing?"

"I weren't supposed to see this," Ron grumbled. "You weren't supposed to see anything until you came home tomorrow!"

"You should have talked Ginny or one of the twins into Polyjuicing themselves into you, then," Harry said. "Your mum fell for the tall story about being up in the attic, but did you really think I would?" He took another look around, finding it a bit difficult to take in the empty cupboard and drawers, the general … bareness of his room. "It looks like I'm being thrown out of the house," he said, as lightly as he could. He already knew what was going on here.

Ron sighed. "I just thought - "

"I know what you thought. I know I didn't agree to it too." Harry winced inwardly a little at the sharpness in his voice, but he was annoyed. "Ron, were you listening when we had the lecture on informed consent, and the importance of people respecting the word No?"

"Harry, I just - "

"Did you seriously think you could move all my stuff, without asking me first, and I'd be delighted when I found out later?"

"I did ask first, damn it!"

"And I said no!"

"No, you didn't," Ron said, getting a familiar mulish set to his mouth. "You said you couldn't because you were spending today with Sirius and Remus!"

Harry gaped at him. "That does _not_ constitute agreement, Ron!"

"Well if I wait for you to make your mind up, we'll both be old and toothless and I'll still be on my own upstairs!"

"Ron - !"

"Well?" Ron demanded, and his whole attitude was a direct challenge.

For the space of two heartbeats Harry was seriously tempted to call his bluff. He had enough people in his life who wanted to manipulate him without adding Ron to the list, and he was just about angry enough to call a halt to the whole relationship. Relationships, as he'd only been thinking that morning, were messy and stressful and invasive, and not for people who had Dark Lords for nemeses.

Then sanity reasserted itself. The row, after all, would be epic and Harry hated rows. He especially hated rows with Ron, he reminded himself, a horrid memory of the estrangement during the Tri-Wizard Tournament popping into his mind. If dealing with this side of a relationship was difficult and annoying, it would be a hundred times worse if the two of them broke up, for it would poison every aspect of their lives, from living here in the student house to their apprenticeships as Aurors and would undoubtedly spill over into their dealings with family and mutual friends, whether those people knew about them or not.

Besides, he didn't really want to break up with Ron. Things were good with him; not just a friendship with benefits as Seamus had once accused them of, but much more than that - friendship, warmth, understanding, acceptance, back-up when there was trouble, a slap up the back of the head when he was being stupid, comfort when he had nightmares, reassurance when he was unsure ... a multitude of things that, yes, he could get from friends but not in the same way. And there was the sex, of course.

The tiny pause was enough to frighten Ron. "I thought you were just joking when you kept putting it off." The defensiveness in his voice did not quite mask the panic underneath. Perhaps he realised what a maelstrom he was on the verge of precipitating after all. "I'll get your stuff and put it all back."

"And what good will that do?" Harry demanded wryly.

"Well, what do you want?" Ron was trying to hold onto his temper, but he was clearly hurt and not quite ready to compromise yet. "I don't get you, I really don't! You sleep next to me every fucking night, you probably spend more time in my room than here – I don't think the sheets on your bed have been changed in over a month! – but you don't want to move in with me. Why not? Because honestly, Harry, I don't see the point." He let out a hissing breath of frustration and dug his hands into his jeans pockets, hunching his shoulders. "This isn't about the room, is it? This is about you. I thought we'd dealt with all that when I gave you that bracelet for your birthday, but you're having second thoughts, aren't you?"

Harry had mostly forgotten about the bracelet, if he was honest with himself. He never took it off – mostly because it was semi-hidden by a concealment charm, and wasn't meant to be casually removed in any case.

"I'm not having second thoughts," he said, although he was well aware that this was perilously close to a lie.

" _First_ thoughts, then!" Ron challenged him angrily.

"Stop making this just about me, damn it! You want too much – "

"Too much? Because I want us to be together, and not have to see you running out of my room every morning like you're cheating on your wife?"

"I want you to stop for a minute and look at it from my point of view for once!" Harry shot back. "Yes, I love you and I want to be with you, but I'm just not ready to get married yet, okay?"

"Who says I want to get married?" Ron said, taken aback.

"Not literally, you prat! Is that even legal?"

"I didn't mean _literally_ , git, and stop trying to change the subject! Who says I want to - fuck, I don't know! - set up house with a couple of dogs and some kids, is that what you're talking about? Who says I want to do that?"

Now Harry was taken aback. "Don't you?"

"Do I look broody?"

"Who said anything about having kids?"

"Are you trying to wind me up?" Ron shook his head, baffled. "Look, mate, I dunno what kind of maggot you've got in your idea-pot, but chuck it out and get _this_ into your head instead - I like my life the way it is, okay? I like living here, I like having all my mates around me, I like being able to do what I like in my spare time without having to get Mum's permission. And I like being here with you, which is the best bit to be honest. I just don't get why we have to live in separate rooms, when everyone who lives here knows about us and you spend practically every night upstairs with me anyway. I've got loads of room. Move in with me, for the love of Merlin." He made a helpless gesture. "It's not like anyone's going to grab this room if you move out. If you really can't stick it in the attic with me, you can always move back in here." Rather irritably, he added as an afterthought: "Although why you took _this_ room instead of the bigger one is beyond me anyway. Mum's old tea caddy has more space in it."

It wasn't as though Ron was being unreasonable, Harry admitted to himself. He wasn't especially attached to this room; its main selling point when he first moved in had been its size, for he wasn't someone who needed lots of space and small equalled secure to someone who'd spent his childhood living in the tiny space crammed under a staircase. Ron's attic room, by contrast, was one of the biggest in the student house but with two of them sharing it, it was unlikely that the extra space would be a problem for Harry. Ron was right; there was really no sane reason for him not to move in there.

There was one consideration that needed to be thrashed out before he seriously considered agreeing to the change, though. Harry had a problem with untidiness. It wasn't that he particularly objected to other people being untidy, but years of being forced to do the Dursleys' housework, especially as a punishment, had left him incapable of being untidy himself and he found it difficult not to tidy up after other people, whether they wanted him to or not, when they were sharing living space with him. But the real problem was his unfortunate tendency to clean things when he felt the slightest bit stressed; this, far from being a useful trait, could quickly spiral out of control and cause a surprising amount of disruption.

"We're going to drive each other nuts if I have to keep picking up after you," Harry warned.

Ron blinked. "I'm a lot neater than I used to be," he objected, but this aspect of cohabitation clearly hadn't occurred to him.

"Well, I'm warning you – if you leave stuff lying about, I'm going to start picking it up and putting it away, probably in places where you don't want it put. And if it's laundry, I'm going to end up washing and ironing it for you and then Hermione'll shout at you because you know what's she's like about me doing other people's chores for them."

Ron rolled his eyes. "Yeah, yeah, okay! You know, if I ever catch her washing Krum's underwear for him after one of his overnight visits, I'm going to have a _party_ at her expense."

Harry snorted. "Your funeral, mate! And _your_ laundry."

"If you move in with me, I'll even wash your laundry for you occasionally," Ron offered.

"Wow – you make it sound so tempting!" But the corner of Harry's mouth was twitching, just a little bit ruefully. Ron was about to get his own way – again. "Fine. I'll move in with you."

"YES!"

"Just … let's get a move on and get back to the Burrow before your mum sends a hit squad out after us."

"Another ten minutes and I'd have finished anyway," Ron said eagerly, and he tossed a few leftover items into a box on the end of Harry's now-former bed. "Have they started on the trifle yet? Mum's trifle is the best part of the afternoon."

Ron's idea of 'finished' was unlikely to match up to his own, Harry reflected, but he resigned himself to spending the next few weeks sorting things out. "I don't think there's going to be a trifle shortage any time soon," he said instead. "I hope you sorted out those Martin Miggs comics you used as an excuse, though, or we'll be busted ..."

~~~

People began to drift back to the student house after Boxing Day, and Harry was once again granted an opportunity to reflect on the general insanity of trapping groups of people together in one place for several days when they had little in common but some shared genetics. He had personally spent a surprisingly pleasant Boxing Day with Sirius and Remus, the three of them taking the decision to Apparate to a place where there was enough snow for them to play like children, followed by a large and warming lunch at a local pub. Ron, however, returned to the student house in a foul temper and with traces of a black eye, having come to blows with Percy over who had control of the wireless dials. Ron had wanted to catch up on the Quidditch scores, but Percy had wanted to listen to a repeat of the Minister's Christmas Broadcast. Somehow this mild disagreement had escalated into a knock-down-and-drag-out fight behind the sofa.

Dean arrived next, expressing loud relief at being rid of his much younger half-sisters; he was closely followed by Neville, who looked traumatised and would only say "Uncle Algie" in a horrified tone of voice when questioned.

Seamus came home the day after that, in almost as bad a temper as Ron and with a great deal of verbal abuse to heap upon both his relatives and the officials at the Flooport which, Harry gathered, had been "a total arse-up, coming and going".

Finally, just as he was convinced that this was the end of the tales of festive woe from his housemates, Hermione arrived home three days early and shooting metaphorical bolts of fire from her eyes whenever anyone was foolish enough to ask her how the trip to Austria had been. Harry and Ron finally cornered her and fed her chocolates until she admitted that she hadn't expected anyone but her mother and father to be with her for the holiday, instead of which two uncles had also been invited along with their spouses and children.

"I know I shouldn't be ungrateful," Hermione said in a small voice, trying valiantly not to sniffle, "because I haven't seen any of them in _years_ because of going to Hogwarts. But I was really hoping to spend some time on my own with Mum and Dad ..."

Harry silently provided her with a handkerchief, while pondering what to do. This was really dreadful, he thought, and not a good way to head into the New Year at all for any of them. Then inspiration struck.

"Be back in a minute," he told Ron, and he dashed out to the kitchen.

Almost ten minutes later, a series of paper darts fluttered through the house to each of the residents.

  
_  
**Harry Potter and Ronald Weasley  
request your immediate presence  
in the Attic Room  
for a housewarming soiree.  
Gifts and black tie unnecessary.  
Food and alcohol welcome.**   
_   


"What's he going on about?" Ron said, at first bemused then beginning to grin.

"Housewarming?" Hermione said doubtfully, but she was beginning to smile too in spite of herself.

"He's a prat," Ron said, shaking his head and tugging on Hermione's arm. "Glad I managed to lasso him."

"He's not a hippogriff, Ron!"

"Easy for _you_ to say! Come on ..."

They ran into the others on the stairs.

"What's this about a housewarming?" Seamus demanded. "We moved in months ago!"

"I don't think that's what Harry's referring to," Hermione said.

"You managed it then," Neville said to Ron, amused.

Ron snorted. "Of course! Did you think I wouldn't?"

"Bet that was an interesting scene."

"Spare me the details!" Dean put in, before Neville could inevitably demand a blow-by-blow account.

"Well basically I shoved him up against the chest of drawers and - "

"Shopping for a week unless you shut up!"

"You're no fun ..."

"Hey, I staged this to cheer everyone up, not so you could start another row!" Harry complained as they all tumbled through the bedroom door. Ron's immense four poster bed was surrounded by an odd assortment of chairs and little tables which he'd spread paper plates of Mrs. Weasley's leftover mince pies, vol-au-vents and other snacks on. "I've got eggnog - Sirius's recipe, it's actually drinkable - and some munchies. Did anyone bring extra booze?"

"Brandied cherries?" Neville offered, holding up a large jar of them.

"Works for me - "

"I scored a bottle of Ogdens off my Uncle Niall before he passed out on Boxing Day," Seamus added, putting a bottle on one of the tables.

"Merlin, we're all going to be blotto in half an hour," Hermione said, but she didn't sound too concerned about it.

"The word you're looking for," Seamus told her, passing her a tumbler, "is b _laddered_."

"How very elegant!"

"I'm not sure that's exactly the idea," Harry put in, passing around a jug of eggnog, "but I think we could all do with a drink after _this_ Christmas."

"I didn't notice you suffering all that much!" Ron said, raising an eyebrow at him. "Nev, pass us the vol-au-vents, will you?"

"I didn't notice you getting called out to Sirius's family's house on Christmas Eve because they found a dead body in the garden," Harry countered. He decided - somewhat ruefully - not to mention the argument over their joint living arrangements.

"Really?" Hermione said, wide-eyed. "You didn't say anything about that before now!"

"Didn't seem to be a good moment to bring it up, to be honest."

"Sirius's family?" Neville broke in, looking rather shocked. "But ... don't they hate him?"

"You have no idea," Harry said with a shudder.

"How did you get called out though?" Ron wanted to know. "I didn't think you were on the list - or Sirius for that matter."

"Yeah, Remus wanted to know how that happened too, 'specially seeing where we ended up."

"Blimey." Ron appropriated a plate of mince pies and began to single-mindedly work his way through them. "So it was a crap Christmas all round, then."

But Harry was too honest to go along with this. "Not entirely," he objected. "Christmas dinner was great. And the snowball fights on Boxing Day. And ... you know ... stuff generally. It just had its crap moments."

Hermione agreed. "Austria is lovely at this time of year ... and it isn't as though I hate my family ..."

"I don't think Uncle Algy can help himself," Neville said reflectively.

"Oh yeah," Dean agreed. "I love my family, it's just being trapped in the house with them for days on end. And having to watch Mary Poppins on TV for the fiftieth time, which is enough to make anyone scream."

"Mum always puts on a really good spread," Ron added.

"Yeah, same here. Mam makes the best Christmas pudding," Seamus said. He was studying a bowl of small, round, breadcrumbed balls suspiciously. "What are these?"

"Gefilte fishballs," Harry told him. "Remus makes them every Christmas."

"Right ... So, are they safe to eat or what?"

"They are unless you're allergic to haddock or matzo meal."

"And what's Christmassy about them?" Ron wanted to know, sampling one.

"Nothing," Harry replied, amused. "They're a Jewish thing I think." Everyone stared at him and he grinned. "Don't look at me like that, I don't know why he does it! They're great snack food though."

Seamus seemed on the verge of commenting for a moment, but then he changed his mind. "Yeah, fair enough," he said and he grabbed the bowl back from Ron. "Leave a few for the rest of us, Weasley!" He took a handful and passed the bowl on to Hermione.

"You know what our problem is," Harry said presently. "It's not all Christmas trees, fairy lights and Yule Balls at Hogwarts anymore. We've grown up."

"Speak for yourself," Ron said, around a mouthful of crisps. "I'm planning to be eighteen for the rest of my life."

"That's a load of crap for a start!" Dean said, laughing at him. "Look at you two! You've got married and settled down already! It'll be two kids, a nice little cottage and a couple of spaniels next."

Hermione choked on a mouthful of mince pie and had to be rescued by Neville.

"Don't need the spaniels," Ron said, taking this in surprisingly good part, considering the conversation he'd had with Harry about the exact same thing only a couple of days before. "Harry's got Sirius and Remus already. And we don't need a cottage - I'm happy where I am."

"No kids," Harry added very firmly. "I'm not into that kind of thing."

Hermione gave them a long, thoughtful look. "I could see the two of you as parents, though."

This sent Seamus, Neville and Dean into fits of laughter, and Ron rather pointedly removed the jug of eggnog from the table beside her.

"Wash your mouth out," he said sternly, although there was a little twitch of amusement at the corner of his mouth.

"Well I'm not the one who's going to get pregnant," Harry told her, and he shuddered.

"Can wizards do that?" Dean asked, alarmed by this new and horrid possibility.

Neville found this so exquisitely humorous that he nearly fell off his chair.

"Don't be a prat!" Seamus told his friend over Neville's hoots. "Wrong equipment, okay? How do you think a bloke'd pull that one off - squeeze the brats out of his arse somehow?"

"I just thought maybe there was a potion or something ..."

"To do what?!"

"That could be fun," Neville put in mischievously. "If it was reversible, of course."

"To do WHAT!" Seamus repeated more loudly. His ludicrous outrage made it very hard for the others to keep a straight face.

"I've always wondered what it's like to have boobs," Neville explained.

"What, so you can feel yourself up? Jesus, Longbottom, you're a fecking pervert!"

"That's hardly news, Seamus!" Hermione giggled. "Look at his t-shirt!"

Neville's latest example of wearable art bore a bold heading: _THE HORNY HIPPOGRIFFS! LIVE! IN HOGSMEAD! FOR ONE NIGHT ONLY!_ And underneath was a disturbingly graphic and literal image, semi-animated.

"They're a band!" Neville protested, grinning.

"They _should_ be banned!"

"Bad herbologist!" Harry told him sternly, topping up his glass. "No arse-babies for you."

"Arse-babies!" Ron hooted.

"Oh, we're getting off the point now!" Hermione said, trying to call them all to order.

"There was a point?"

"Yes, there was a point!" Hermione stood up, and held out her glass. "Harry, you called us all here to celebrate you moving in with Ron - "

"You make it sound so middle-class," Harry complained.

"If you wanted it to look sordid, you should have stayed in your own room," she told him. "Cohabiting is practically mainstream. Anyway, I just want to propose a toast - "

"Oh Merlin, _no!_ "

" – To all of us," Hermione finished, and she made a face at Harry's exaggerated relief. "To all of us – have a happy New Year, everyone."

This brought all of the boys to their feet too, and they all solemnly clinked glasses.

"Happy New Year!"


End file.
